Oh, Inverted World
by screaming-poetically
Summary: Post “Live and Let Die.” When Flack tells her of the woman in jail, the one who said he has nice eyes, the first thing Lindsay can think of to say is that it’s true. FlackLindsay.


**Title:** Oh, Inverted World  
**Summary:** Post "Live and Let Die." When Flack tells her of the woman in jail, the one who said he has nice eyes, the first thing Lindsay can think of to say is that it's true. FlackLindsay.  
**Disclaimer:** The names of all characters contained herein are the property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, CBS and Alliance Atlantis. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.  
**A/N:** Minor spoilers for "Live and Let Die." The fic is named for The Shins album of the same name.  
**Rating:** PG / K+

**Oh, Inverted World**

_"Unknown quotients, you must be using potions, how else could you tie my head to the sky."  
-The Shins_

She wants to ask him if he's okay. She had heard that he was hurt today, chasing a suspect. But they don't talk much, her and Flack, so she thinks that maybe it would be out of place to ask. It's dark outside now, and everyone has gone, most of the lab techs and Stella too. She made a point to leave early tonight because Frankie is taking her someplace special, a place where she has to wear a short skirt and a long jacket. It gets lonely when the only people are her and Mac these nights, because Lindsay knows the only reason Mac stays is because he has nowhere else to go, and she stays because she wants to find a place to go. She supposes it's not so different.

It takes a few moments before Lindsay notices Flack standing in the doorway to the gun lab, watching her work with his head tilted and blue eyes focused only on her. It's easy to tell he was hurt, he's got a cut above his right eye and its stopped bleeding now, but it looks like the cut hurts something fierce with all the bruising. When he notices her looking he loosens his tie and moves into the lab, sitting on a stool one station over from Lindsay. He's just watching and that makes her nervous.

She wants to reach out and touch him, the skin above his eye where it's torn. She wants to feel him, and she's surprised when her hand reaches out to do so; Lindsay pulls her hand back in, reining her thoughts. Flack starts talking then, trying to ease the moment. He seems to understand what just happened, understands that Lindsay wanted to touch him—to just feel something real, a little human contact.

"So, I went to the jail today, yeah? Lookin' up a lead, and this woman, she wouldn't stop hittin' on me. Said, 'You got nice eyes, you know that?' Something like that has never happened to me before. Danny thought it was funny."

Lindsay, without looking up from the gun she was dusting for prints, said evenly, "It's true, you know. You do have nice eyes."

After she says it she can hardly believe herself, but she knows it's true. Flack's eyes are the clearest and deepest blue she's ever seen, and she thinks maybe it's because they hold behind them such deep secrets. She thinks maybe, someday soon, she'd like to learn to swim therein. Lindsay looks up, then, when she realizes that Flack isn't sitting anymore but standing closer to her, closer than is absolutely necessary. She's suddenly overcome with the urge to say something clever, she _needs_ to say something, anything, but she can't think with him so close.

"You think so, Monroe?"

He's grinning and it makes her uneasy. She doesn't like what that grin does to her, doesn't like how it makes her blood race and her heart lift.

"How are you? You're cut, just here," she says, changing the subject abruptly.

She removes her gloves, tired of the forensics tonight; Lindsay can't concentrate with Flack around anyways, professional conduct be damned. She reaches up and touches the skin around the cut gingerly. He grimaces and she moves to pull away, thinking she's hurt him, but he grabs her hand midair, and a moment later realizing what he's done, lets go.

"Ain't nothin'."

Lindsay disagrees and grabs a first aid kit; Flack shakes his head but doesn't want to start anything—he knows what Danny hasn't learned yet, that she's stubborn and won't give up. Sarcastic remarks and sardonic replies aren't anything against pure surrender and honesty. He sits down and she tends to him. Out comes the hydrogen peroxide, something she always hated as a kid because it stung. When she dabs it on with a cottonswab he makes a face and she murmurs an apology.

"You know, Monroe," he says, thoughtfully, "your looks are kind of pretty."

"Don't say things you don't mean," she says, wishing like hell he meant it.

Lindsay puts a small bandage on the cut and moves to turn away, back to forensics, back to facts and a place where things you feel don't matter, because it's all about the evidence. But she can't turn away because his hand is on her forearm now, burning a hole through the fabric with his touch. Flack stands up, he's taller than Lindsay and he guesses maybe she likes it that way. She's not looking at him now but he wishes she was, and a small part of him regrets saying she's pretty because now she's not focused on him.

"Would these eyes lie?" he asks.

She looks up now, into his eyes, questing for something she really can't place. Moments ago his eyes were a delightful deep blue, but now they're a dark cobalt, and she can tell that she's not the only one asking questions tonight.

"We shouldn't…Mac might see."

She's worried now. When Lindsay was entertaining thoughts of Flack in her head, of doing naughty things in bed together with his tie, that's all it was—entertaining. But now it's different, it's real.

"Mac's a Marine. He'll know what to do," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't ask," says Flack, tilting Lindsay's chin up so he could reach her lips, "don't tell."

During the day Flack is all business; he puts up a wall between him and the world, a wall he never lets down for anyone, but after that kiss Lindsay finds she doesn't want to swim in his deep blue eyes after all. She wants to drown.

"You know, most of the sex I've had in my life was not as personal as that kiss," she says, holding onto him for support. He makes her weak in the knees.

"Yeah? You're not too bad yourself, Lindsay."

He brushes a stray piece of hair out of her face, and lets his hand rest on her cheek for a moment. She likes the feeling of him, the smell. He feels good, makes Lindsay feel like a ship come into a safe harbor after a storm.

"Flack…"

He raises his eyebrow at her. What a scoundrel.

"You mean to tell me, after that kiss, you ain't even gonna call me by my first name? I'm hurt," he says.

She knows he isn't, not really, but Flack—no, Don—is something she'll have to consider from now on. Mac never really specified about coworker relationships when she joined the New York team. And since Don's a homicide detective, and not a CSI, isn't that a loophole anyways? And to think her mother wanted her to be a teacher.

"Don," she amends, "I don't know about this, it's all so new to me. I worry sometimes that I feel too much, but what does that mean anyways? I'm so confused. This doesn't quantify. I can't control it."

When he pulls her close, just to hold her, he whispers, "You're not meant to" and somehow that makes Lindsay want him all the more, because at least he's feeling it too. Or maybe it's just the perfect thing to say at one of the most wonderful times she's had since coming to New York City. Maybe it's that.

She catches her breath at the fire in his eyes when he looks at her. Other men have looked at her so, but never before has she felt a matching fire. When he moves to kiss her again, Lindsay lets him, and thinks that this is something she could get used to.

------

Three days later at a crime scene Detective Thacker asks her out on a date. He makes remarks about her derrierre and rude comments in general. Lindsay wants to hit him in the face with the baseball bat that is covered with their victim's brain matter but she doesn't. Instead, she lets him down nice and easy, showing him the manners she learned out in Montana.

She says no, and when he asks why, a straightforward reply is forthcoming.

"I have a boyfriend. Now, thanks for your interest, but I have a crime scene to work."

Danny finds it a subject of great interest that Montana has a boyfriend and keeps asking her who. In fact, Lindsay keeps count of how many times he asks her (thirty-seven so far) because she's thinking that collecting DNA from a hotel room isn't exactly fun. People who slept in those beds would projectile vomit if they knew how much sperm remains in hotel rooms even after a cleaning.

"So, Montana, is it anybody I know?"

"Maybe," she says, and her lips remember a certain charming detective with blue eyes and black hair, and a smug grin that could put Han Solo to shame.


End file.
